XIXᵉ siècle – XXᵉ siècle
Central and Southern Africa
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Scramble for African Labour was the colonial competition to recruit African workers for mines and forced-labour plantations. It accompanied the European partition of African territory and sovereignty but targeted labour as a resource in its own right. Recruiting agents competed across Angola, the Zambezi, Katanga, and the Bight of Benin, while African workers resisted through armed revolt, desertion, strikes, refusal of underground work, and compound riots.
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Le récit
The partition of Africa involved more than the division of territory and sovereignty. Colonial authorities and labour-recruiting agencies also competed for African workers, treating labour as a resource required by mining enterprises and plantation economies. Diamonds and gold were among the sought-after resources, but the recruitment of unskilled labour became a particularly intense dimension of early colonial expansion.
Recruiting networks crossed colonial boundaries. By the turn of the century, agents from the mines of southern Africa competed with agents representing Portuguese forced-labour plantations, with recruitment extending across Angola, the Zambezi, Katanga, and the Bight of Benin. This inter-territorial system connected distant regions through labour migration and colonial extraction.
African populations resisted this second scramble in multiple ways. Opposition included armed revolt, desertion, strikes, refusal to work underground, and riots in labour compounds. These practices broaden the study of resistance beyond particular national or ethnic histories by revealing conflict along the wider network through which early colonial labour was recruited and moved.
XIXᵉ siècle – XXᵉ siècle
Central and Southern Africa
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Scramble for African Labour was the colonial competition to recruit African workers for mines and forced-labour plantations. It accompanied the European partition of African territory and sovereignty but targeted labour as a resource in its own right. Recruiting agents competed across Angola, the Zambezi, Katanga, and the Bight of Benin, while African workers resisted through armed revolt, desertion, strikes, refusal of underground work, and compound riots.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
The partition of Africa involved more than the division of territory and sovereignty. Colonial authorities and labour-recruiting agencies also competed for African workers, treating labour as a resource required by mining enterprises and plantation economies. Diamonds and gold were among the sought-after resources, but the recruitment of unskilled labour became a particularly intense dimension of early colonial expansion.
Recruiting networks crossed colonial boundaries. By the turn of the century, agents from the mines of southern Africa competed with agents representing Portuguese forced-labour plantations, with recruitment extending across Angola, the Zambezi, Katanga, and the Bight of Benin. This inter-territorial system connected distant regions through labour migration and colonial extraction.
African populations resisted this second scramble in multiple ways. Opposition included armed revolt, desertion, strikes, refusal to work underground, and riots in labour compounds. These practices broaden the study of resistance beyond particular national or ethnic histories by revealing conflict along the wider network through which early colonial labour was recruited and moved.